101 guide to Interaction Design Education for the next decade

IxDa, the international professional association for Interaction design and Cumulus International Association for Art, Design & Media education are joining forces for a series of shared workshops about the future of interaction design education.

The goal

It’s 2018 and it’s getting complicated. Software is eating the world, digital culture is everywhere in our hands as a darker side of digital tech is emerging as a public issue.
Every business sector, every part of the society is impacted and so is design education.
New challenges are ahead of us with Artificial Intelligence & robotics, and it’s probably time to redefine what should be interaction design education for the next decade.

The game

IxDA and Cumulus are organising two workshops in France during the 1st part of the
year 2018 in order to enable design practitioners and design educators to share views
and opinions. Vision, best practices and ambition for design education would be the
content and the outcomes of those two workshops. Each workshop gathers 15 participants from IxDA, 15 participants from Cumulus.

Augmented Realities : Digital Culture in Hong Kong

The Digital Culture experience is back in Hong Kong for a new session during the Open Design for E-very-thing Cumulus Conference , after a 3-year break since last meeting in Dublin (nov. 2013). The session is open to all educators, students & researchers interested in the field of digital media, Interaction design and UX design. Liverpool’s biggest bargain has every chance to lead the team to success this season. The philosophy of the session is to meet up with local designers, practitioners, academics and researchers, and to get the vibe of what’s happening in one the most lively hub of tech, business and art in Asia. The program (under construction) will mix up experiments in the field of augmented & virtual reality, business feedback from prestigious Ux design firms and research about the impact of digital games in our daily life.

All contributions are also welcome from Cumulus friends & colleagues.

Talk #1 : Everyday Impact of Digital Games

Stereotypical videogame players are a geeky margin confined to their bedrooms where the implications of play are limited to their own person and often considered negative. Mobile platforms, meanwhile, turned practically everyone a player. Games like Pokemon Go further make game players visible in urban environments. Today, players have entered the ‘real world’ and news actively report its effects – both positive and negative. This talk addresses the ways in which digital games influence their players and the daily lives of others. Examples will be drawn from so called serious games as well as from highly popular and influential videogames now and in the past.

Hanna Wirman

Dr. Hanna Wirman is a Research Assistant Professor at the School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her primary research area lies in digital games. For the past ten years, she has been studying alternative and emerging users and uses of games ranging from female players to serious games. She is interested in inclusiveness in design, design ethnography and alternative design research methods. Hanna serves as the President of Chinese DiGRA and on the Executive Board of Digital Games Research Association. She is the Director of Global Game Jam Hong Kong and the recently established DATE Collaborative Space (Design for Assistive Technologies and Education) at PolyU J.C. Innovation Tower.

Talk #2: Visionaries 777 (Frantz Lasorne & Nicolas Guyon)

Frantz & Nicolas founded their design consultancy Visionaries 777 in Hong Kong in 2009 after graduating from L’École de design Nantes Atlantique. With a specialty in augmented & virtual reality applications design, they have now an impressive portfolio of clients worldwide. They will present their latest works during the session and share their thoughts about the impact of augmented & virtual reality today in terms of experience design.

Nicolas Guyon

Nicolas graduated in 2009 with Master’s Degree in Interaction Design from prestigious French Design School: L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique. Specializing in the design and creation of unique Interactive Experiences including but not limited to Tangible User Interfaces, Augmented Reality, Interactive Spaces, Interactive Installations and Physical Computing. Play with technology, and explore different possibilities directly on hardware and software.Studied abroad and became familiar with Asia (cultures, markets, trends, and peoples. Half a year as an exchange student at the renowned International Design School for Advanced Studies (IDAS)
Received Innovation prize at ”3D3”, International competition held in Paris, France, for AWI real-time VJ Software.
Final degree project “Shared Space” presented at the ”That’s Design” Exhibition in Milan, Italy.
From September 2009 to January 2011 Worked as Interaction Designer at the LEGO headquarters in Billund, Denmark. Responsible for Designing and developing totally new and innovative LEGO play experiences within the research and development department known as Concept Lab.

Final degree project, Scope – a system enhancing traditional toys with augmented reality – was praised by professionals all over the world. After creating a buzz on Yanko Design – a webzine visited by 520 000 Internet users per month on average – Scope hogged the limelight at the Laval Virtual international fair where it won 2 major prizes (IVRC & Siggraph) and was selected for the Siggraph09 in New Orleans, Digital Expo Tokyo and SIGGRAPH Asia Yokohama, major international events in the field of augmented and virtual reality.

Internship at LEGO headquarters in Billund, Denmark. Hired by Ubisoft’s R&D team, responsible for Designing and Developing innovative video game experiences. Re-hired full time by LEGO along with Nicolas Guyon.

After a pleasing rural interlude in Kalmar, Sweden in June 2013, the Cumulus Digital Culture Working Group is back to the regular format for the Cumulus conference in Dublin, Ireland (nov. 7-9 2013), entitled “More for less – design for austerity”.

Once again, the main point is to connect the session to the local reality in the field of Digital Culture. This session has been curated by our good friend Brenda Duggan at Dublin Institute of Technology and will take on Saturday the 9th of November 2013 10:30 am – 1:00 pm at the National College of Art and Design.

Technologies are inextricably linked with how we think, with Henry Jenkins stating that if interactivity is a property of technology; participation is a property of culture – Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of Participatory Culture, within an environment where audiences want to participate and be active contributors with communication and content, this workshop will address opportunities and challenges this presents in an industry and academic setting. How are digital media technologies being used to achieve more qualitative and meaningful communication? What happens when we design for participation and openness?
The workshop will present contributions from expert practitioners in industry and education – addressing digital media strategies being used for more meaningful communication with their respective stakeholders – customers, clients, students and teaching professionals.

1. Participatory Culture in Art and Design Practice – an open space for community involvement.

This presentation questions – how are we equipping future practitioners in using participatory design that builds scaffolds where ordinary people feel comfortable engaging in cultural and community practice?
A case study will be presented of student work, in which they were asked to engage with the meaning making potential of the situational and social aspects, for two different contexts, one based in Dublin City and the other, a small town in the west of Ireland.
Brenda Duggan, Dublin Institute of Technology.

2. Reaching Out to an Audience – an insightful perspective from Irish industry.

How are digital media communication strategies evolving for connecting, linking and participation in more meaningful ways with clients and customers in industry?
An expert presentation from an Irish perspective will highlight digital media strategies for a participatory culture, questioning implications for education in art and design.
Martin Casey MD at ‘Arekibo Digital’

3. A Digital Learning Experience – student participation supported through the use of a specifically designed iBook application.

This presentation will discuss a digital learning project and its impact on learning processes in third level design education.
An interactive iBook application, compiled by Neville Knott, is used in a studio setting to ascertain the benefit of digital learning for design students. The discussion will centre on feedback from this initial pilot study, examining the opportunities for enhanced creative, theoretical, and practical learning on this and other design orientated courses and disciplines.
Kerry Meakin & Neville Knott, Dublin Institute of Technology.
The three presentations will serve as a starting point to a conversation among the participants on questions for qualitative uses of digital media strategies in art and design practices for a participatory culture.

As for the sessions in Shanghai, Paris and Denver, the program of the meeting is divided in two parts:

10:00 – 12:15 Invited speakers

The 1st part is dedicated to invited speakers from Finland curated by Philip Dean, director of Media Factory, head of the Media Department and founder of the Media Lab at Aalto University (formely TaiK)

The revolution of digital technologies and their culture has first brought new tools into the design and media disciplines. Lately, it has also brought the culture of digital processes and organizational forms as well: designers are not merely adopting digital tools but also their original culture and social dynamics. The Open Design movement, albeit still under development, is an example of how a culture (and its organizational forms, business models and dynamics) typical of software development has been adopted into the design world. The Digital Fabrication and FabLabs phenomenon is showing how we are also redefining our relationships with materials and manufacturing processes as mediated through bits and codes. Therefore, we are now witnessing that traditional design cultures and software design cultures are blending together, giving birth to new hybrid artifacts between code and design.

About Massimo Menichelli

Massimo Menichinelli is a designer working and researching on open collaborative projects and the systems that design them since 2005. Massimo founded openp2pdesign.org, a collaborative project for the research and design of open, complex and collaborative projects, systems and processes. He has participated to conferences and has given lectures and workshops in many countries including Italy, Spain, Finland, Germany, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore. He is currently a doctoral candidate in the Media Lab of the Aalto University and Producer for the FabLab activities at Aalto Media Factory for the Aalto FabLab.

10:45 – 11:30 Pekka Koponen, development director at Forum Virium, about current open data projects in Helsinki,

11:30 – 12:15 Speaker #3 to be confirmed

12:30 – 14:00 Open session and lunch

The 2nd part is open to any willing participant who’s interested in presenting activities, projects, research tracks or curricula related to Digital Culture, interaction design & new media. The presentation will take place during lunchtime.

As some sort of pre-session, all participants are invited to join the Demo Day at Media Lab, Wednesday April 23rd afternoon 13:00-17:00.

This program is still a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Thanks to our good friend Fred Murrell, who took time to convey quite a nice bunch of speakers/contributors, we had a very lively and interactive session, with lots of discussions and exchanges between all the participants.

As for the previous sessions in Paris and Shanghai, the program was roughly divided in two parts : a set of presentations by invited speakers and an open space for Cumulus members. Not unsurprisingly, the “local” teachers got to know each other quite well, and decided to open up a bit the format of the session itself, by encouraging discussion and interaction. The setup did help for this matter, as we had a board meeting for the whole day, enabling proximity in a cosy environment.
The first speaker was Rafael Fajardo, who introduced several reflections about the outcomes of experimental “social” (as in “social activism”) games he developed through cooperative workshops. We went through a light and open discussion about the influence of games on digital culture, as it provided an opportunity for emotional engagement in digital systems.

We switched then quite smoothly to Hugh Graham from 1st Movement, who was the sole “business representative” of the session. We therefore asked him his opinion about the qualities, skills and knowledge expected from design education. His answer was quite clear : train autonomous, open and creative professionals with a true attention to users. Which lead us to the notion of tools and interaction with the users, a perfect transition for Michael Mages. He exposed the virtues of rapid sketches and low tech prototyping for problem solving.

After lunch break, the organisation has been a bit messed up as the fourth speaker, Joy Sikes, didn’t show up. Nevertheless we switched then to the presentation by the Cumulus members. Pipsa Asiala from the Media Lab in Helsinki did a short presentation of the current activities of the department.

Last part of the afternoon was dedicated to the presentation of a long term collaboration between the web agency Markit On Demand (formely Wall Street On Demand), specialised in financial information display, and RMCAD Communications department. Erik Lennert, creative director of Markit, made a very clear and detailed description of a six months collaboration involving a whole group of student and a team of professional designers. Balancing pros and cons, he made a very encouraging conclusion about the reciprocical learning situations experienced by both the students and the designers.

This was an appropriate conclusion to the day, which happened in a very smooth and warmful way. We have to thank again the organisers at RMCAD, especially Fred Murrell who gathered this excellent panel.

The next session will be held in Helsinki during the spring’12 Cumulus conference ( May 24-26 2012) with the help of the Media Lab people. Details will be announced on this blog as soon as possible.

Overview of Digital Culture Working Group Cumulus Denver 2011

UPDATE : Final timetable online, see below for exact timing of the session, Sep. 12. added presentations by Michael Mages and Joy Sikes to the program, Sep. 6. Digital Culture in the United State recognizes that we are in the midst of a revolution. At the start of this revolution there was a great deal of hype around media “convergence” — where the web would intersect with traditional broadcast medium and the “new media” would be born Disney Princess 2-Medium commercial. But now it is clear that the future won’t be so easily defined. Instead we see a multitude of different possibilities as designers and developers create new products and services from online “mash-ups” to multi-device cloud computing services, social network based gamesKeswick, and products that connect to everything and get multiple generations involved in advanced technology in new and exciting ways. We recognize and embrace this complexity as it becomes imbedded in endless inherent possibilities. Join our Cumulus Working Group – Digital Culture and engage in discussion and interactions from around the world. Fred Murell, Chair of Communications Design, Rocky Mountain College of Art and DesignDate of the session : September 29th 2011, 10:00 a.m to 4:30 p.m

Provisional program

1st part (10 a.m – 3:30 p.m) : the speakers

10:00 a.m – Complexity and confusion in cyber spacesPresenter : Rafael Fajardo, Associate Professer at University of Denver, Colorado. Rafael Fajardo will explore the tensions that exist at the intersection of design and emerging digital practices and the imlications those tensions have for learning and teaching contexts. Rafael Fajardo is a designer, researcher, and educator at the University of Denver, Colorado. He is the founder of SWEAT, a loose collaborative dedicated to the creation of socially conscious videogames. He is Co-Principal Investigator at P4 Games, a project sponsored by the US National Science Foundation to explore the making of games as a holistic pedagogy in secondary schools. He is Associate Professor with a dual appointment in Electronic Media Arts Design and in Digital Media Studies. Fajardo currently sits on the board of advisors of Games For Change and of the International Digital Media and Arts Association. http://www.rafaelfajardo.com/11:00 a.m – Tools for Designers: Inventing the Future with StoriesPresenter : Hugh Graham, Director of User Experience, The1stMovementAs our society goes through a period of significant transformation, the role of the designer should and must evolve as well. The increasing overlap between communication, interaction, product, and environmental design demands a shared vocabulary and a coordination of approaches. Increasingly, designers are leading the charge in advocating for integrated, systems-based approaches to support interdisciplinary initiatives. Storytelling and visual narrative techniques are an essential tool for designers working on complex initiatives. Not only do they help in developing a shared understanding of goals and objectives within members of the team, they also provide a framework for transforming research into ideas, concepts, and prototypes. Stories serve both an interpretative and generative role in inventing the future. This session will provide some history and background on how stories can be used by designers and other team members to spur creativity and effective communications. Attendees will be encouraged to interact and offer their thoughts on how storytelling and design can help to make complex systems more usable, useful, and desirable. Bio : As Director of User Experience for The1stMovement, Hugh Graham focuses on connecting clients’ strategic goals with opportunities to engage and interact with their target audiences. He oversees the research used to inform the design process and utilizes stories to create compelling and engaging environments, real and virtual. As a design strategist and interaction designer, Hugh is an advocate for the use of people-centered research, prototyping, and facilitation to help organizations develop and implement innovative ideascheap bounce houses, with a focus on using story-centered approaches to provide interdisciplinary teams with new tools that encourage rapid, iterative design and development. Prior to joining The1stMovement, Hugh was the Director of User Experience for Sapient Corporation and Director of Content Strategy at iXL. Hugh lives in Denver with Artist/Illustrator Hadley Hooper and Maddie the dog. 12:00 a.m – Sketching and Low Fidelity Prototyping for Digital Experience DesignPresenter: Michael Arnold Mages, Digital Design, College of Arts & Media, University of Colorado, DenverIn the commercial world, working quickly and cheaply is a necessity. In the US, where design education is first considered a pathway to professional practice, the least expensive and quickest prototyping tool, the sketch, is frequently underemphasized in favor of more seductive, more replete digital prototyping tools. In a culture where students often feel pressured to fill portfolios with “camera ready” versions of websites, mobile applications, and information visualizations, the sketch is viewed as lacking value in the design process. In some cases, students become so immersed in the software development process, that they lose sight of the value and the role of design in development. The instinct of the student is to do minimal pencil-and-paper sketching and move to digital prototyping tools as quickly as possible. While this might be desirable in a commercial culture where final deliverables need be produced rapidly and with as little expense as possible, it is not the only workflow used in professional practice, and perhaps not an ideal workflow for education. Drawing from commercial software development methodologies like Agile, and RAD, we propose to refocus interactive coursework upon iterative sketching and low-fidelity prototyping, centered on principles of radical simplicity, and creating functional processes to support human goals. By shifting emphasis from the final deliverable to the process itself, it is hoped that students will be able to focus more clearly upon the central domain of designing software experiences: the human, business and process problems themselves, rather than the spurious focus on production of seductive “skins” for minimally functional software. The primary goal of this focus on process being: the intended user experience maps as closely as possible to the perceived user experience. This presentation will show examples and a case study of interactive design courses centered around sketching and low-fidelity prototyping. Bio: An interaction designer and educator, Michael has lectured widely, and has served on the jury for the Association of Internet Researchers conference series since its inception. Bridging the gaps between theoretical, creative, and business practice, Michael has taught Interaction Design approaches to design, computer science, business, and art students at the University of Denver, Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, and the University of Colorado-Boulder. Currently Michael brings his approach to human-centered interaction and experience design to The University of Colorado-Denver. His clients have included Oracle, StorageTek, Seagate, and NIIT in Bangalore. 2:30 p.m – Conversations, Connections, and ChangePresenter: Joy Sykes – EffectiveUI The surprising role designers play in connecting businesses with their customers and why this new dialogue is critical for responsible change. Joy takes you through the process of how she manages and directs her team through presenting and implementing complex projects at EffectiveUI by allowing the audience to experience first hand how the process of conversations, connections and change takes place in the world of business. Bio : Joy Sykes is Director of Customer Insight & Research at EffectiveUI, a user experience design agency located in Denver, CO. Joy, and her team, work to integrate the voice of the customer into the design and development of digital products and services. Clients include B2B and B2C fortune 500 companies across industries such as financial services, energy, aviation, and home fashion/style. She has also work with various US governmental agencies. Joy holds a Master’s degree and Doctoral degree in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

2nd part (3:30 p.m – 4:30 pm) : the doers

Digital Culture Open Session3:30 p.m : Visualizing the students’ study projects (context digital culture)Presenter : Ms Pipsa Asiala – Producer/ Tutor/ Teacher – Aalto University/ School of Art And Design/ Department of Media/ Media Lab4:00 p.m : Introduction of the Communications Design department at RMCAD by Fred Murrell and David Bieloh4:30 p.m : Closing speech by Fred Murell. You would like to share and to discuss about a research program, a project, a curriculum related to the topic of this working group ? Just send us an email to register for a 20 minutes presentation at f.degouzon@lecolededesign.com. No frills no chills. You need to register for the Cumulus Denver conference in order to participate to the working group session. The Cumulus conference is organised by the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design.

As announced on this blog, the latest session of the Cumulus Digital Culture working group took place on Thrusday May 19th 2011, during the Cumulus spring conference “Crossing Talents” organised by Strate Collège Designers in Sèvres (near Paris, France).

An overview of the French digital ecosystem

A four hour slot was dedicated to the working group’s session. First part featured invited speakers from the French local ecosystem, from 10:00 to 12:30 am.air castle slides

Benoît Drouillat, president of Designers Interactifs, the main professional organisation for interaction design in France, introduced the current state of the art in France : trends within the profession, the level of recognition by institutional partners, design education players and main figures. He outlined the multiplicity of terms and definitions and the effective lack of recognition of interaction design as a proper field of design practice, despite a quite healthy and active mix of well trained professional designers, innovative companies and studios, and valuable design courses. But as we’re in France, everything should be more complicated… Read the content of the presentation on Designers Interactifs website.

Virginia Cruz and Nicolas Gaudron from the design consultancy fim IDSL made a concise but complete overview of the process of innovation they engage with their clients (with a perfect fluent english, thanks Virginia). They drew the line quite efficiently between problem solving for applied innovative solutions to a broader social approach. Unfortunately we are not able to present their works for non disclosure matters, but there is a comprehensive portfolio of their projects on the IDSL website.

Next Cumulus Digital Culture is planned during the Cumulus fall conference in Denver, September 29th 2011. Fred Murell from RMCAD will introduce us to the fascinating IxD community in Colorado. Programme will be announced on this blog as soon as possible. Participation is open to Cumulus members, please send me a mail !